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Thematic areas and priority actions

Monday 8 – Wednesday 10 September 2025 I WP3675

Environmental Community Plants Mangroves
  1. Achieving scale and sustainability: an action plan for implementing Locally Led Adaptation
  2. Participatory process
  3. Steps to build an action plan for LLA
  4. Thematic areas and priority actions
  5. Vision and mission
  6. Summary and next steps

Addressing the inaccessibility of finance

Without accessible, flexible, and locally controlled funding, adaptation will fail.

Priority actions

  1. We will identify and/or develop models for implementing locally led adaptation approaches at scale, building on what works at different scales.
  2. We will push forward the implementation of existing practical actions to ease pathways to access existing finance mechanisms
  3. We will institutionalise LLA into existing finance systems and processes at global, national, subnational and local levels
  4. We will link research and evidence of what works to finance decision makers at global, national, subnational, and local levels.

Other actions

  • Increase the amount of accessible funding for LLA.
  • Reform the climate finance system.
  • Build economies in countries to avoid dependency and shifting the burden of implementation to communities.
  • Donors to change mindset that LLA is a risky investment.
  • Ensure that climate funding is flexible and multi-year.
  • Transfer financial power to the local level.
  • Invest in local systems with sustainable microfinancing.
  • Use pooled funds to help coordinate donors and partners.
  • Identify evidence of private sector investment in LLA, and where public sector and philanthropy can contribute.
  • Create a platform for multiple stakeholders to coordinate and plan together.
  • Build a strong business case for financing LLA.
  • Integrate LLA into development and climate projects.
  • Communicate the evidence, stories, and value of successful LLA.
  • Strengthen leadership in LLA to attract funding.

While the systemic changes required to improve access to finance for LLA are enormous, participants agreed to take forward changes in their funding strategies, unlock flexible resources, and shift power to local actors.  

Join the action: All stakeholders are invited to join this collective endeavour to improve access to finance for LLA. 

Strengthening communications and advocacy

Strong communications and advocacy are needed to promote the effective uptake and implementation of LLA at all levels.

Priority actions

  1. We will create an advocacy strategy
    1. Identify a volunteer/create a committee to deliver a global advocacy strategy
    1. Work though the steps, purpose, mission, objectives, why
    1. Identify champions and the support they need (who to speak to, when, what to say)
    1. Recognise there are multiple advocacies and strategies for all the different stakeholders
    1. Obtain evidence to support the strategy’s objectives
    1. Every constituency to identify a representative that supports a global advocacy strategy.
  2. We will conduct a global stocktake of progress against the strategy every 2-3 years.

Individually we will:

  1. Ensure our organisation connects advocacy and comms people with the LLA communication and advocacy strategy and think about the messages that work for us individually.
  2. Find a buddy and work out how to support each other with communication and advocacy. (This can extend to groups.)
  3. Identify and utilise existing communications networks where possible.

Other actions

  • Build a solid narrative of the added value for money of LLA, and link to climate finance and sectoral expertise.
  • Ensure that multiple narratives exist to meet the needs of different audiences including for communities.
  • Clarify language around LLA and ensure that local knowledge can be shared with non-local actors and vice versa.
  • Bust common myths about LLA.
  • LLA should support the revival of traditional institutions and knowledge, rather than allow them to be destroyed in the name of modernisation.
  • Strategic communication that is focused on political influencing and understanding vested interests.
  • Focus on audiences and inclusivity. Bring communities and the private sector into discursive and action planning spaces.
  • Build the capacity of reliable local subject matter experts at all levels to be able to talk about and act on LLA.

Communication and advocacy are embedded across many of the thematic areas because they are fundamental to how LLA is perceived and acted upon by a range of stakeholders. Participants agreed to amplify the case for LLA in their networks and policy spaces, develop advocacy strategies, put community voices at the centre, and share learning.

Join the action: All readers and interested stakeholders are invited to join this collective effort to strengthen communication and advocacy for LLA.

Packaging and generating evidence

Promoting the effective implementation of LLA requires the existing evidence of the impact and results of LLA to be packaged and communicated to different audiences and for new evidence to be generated where appropriate.

Priority actions

In step 2, participants identified the following top actions the group could take:

  1. We will establish a growing compendium of evidence on LLA and guidance on communication that meets the needs of specific sectors and levels (local, national, international). This can be held by a proactive and trusted hub that supports building capabilities at all levels for identifying, generating, and deploying evidence to tell convincing stories in their context at the right time.
  2. We will develop thinking about: Who hosts? How is it presented? How can the co-creation of evidence be supported? How can community-generated evidence be included? How can evidence be generated that demonstrates communities can be trusted to manage and deliver climate adaptation?

Other actions

  • Package and customise existing evidence on LLA, targeting specific stakeholders.
  • Build a business case for LLA based on evidence of impact.
  • Share knowledge about evidence of successful LLA according to communities.
  • Make an argument about where LLA fits into broader system interventions.
  • Create trust so that LLA is not a threat.
  • Learn from evidence about the impact of devolving power to communities.
  • Highlight the evidence of private sector investment, and where public and philanthropic funding can fill gaps

Evidence plays a critical role to leverage funds and support for LLA by demonstrating the impact of LLA in communities, value for money to donors and government, and the value to communities’ wellbeing and survival. Participants agreed they could do more to make existing evidence clear, navigable, and specific to different contexts, and to generate more evidence from communities themselves. Participants agreed to contribute to building the compendium of LLA impact share case studies, data, and lessons learned with the hub to tell a compelling global story.

Join the action: All readers and interested stakeholders are invited to contribute to the compendium of evidence of the impact of LLA and strengthen the case for investment.

Increasing institutional support for LLA

For LLA to succeed, strong institutional support that promotes and invests in LLA systematically is necessary.

Priority actions

  1. We will share what works to drive systems change for LLA.
  2. We will map the power and find the right entry points (not the easy points).
  3. We will design interventions to solve the system level problem.
  4. We will practise what you preach – implement intentionality within your organization.
  5. We will build on what is there – strengthen the system, do not subvert it.
  6. We will be courageous in speaking truth to power.

Other actions

  • Realign institutional objectives away from delivering programmes to creating system change collaboratively.
  • Explore institutional pathways for supporting LLA and identify what different models mean in different contexts.
  • Support changes within local institutions to allow funds to get to the local level.
  • Identify political opportunities and individual champions within the system that can drive forward the LLA agenda.
  • Strengthen governance and coordination of complementary actions on LLA including finance, deprojectisation, and valuing flexibility.
  • Recognise governments as the entry point for systemic changes as they are the custodians of the most vulnerable people.

Institutions across the world have the potential to play a significant role to embed LLA in their own systems, to work more collaboratively and in coordination with other institutions, to share knowledge and learning, and to identify the entry points for change. Participants agreed to take these action points forward and map their organisational influence, identify entry points and take forward in earnest changes that could be implemented within their own institutions.   

Join the action: All readers and stakeholders interested in promoting LLA are invited to drive change within their own institution, with support from and collaboration with the LLA community.

Building government leadership

Without purposeful government leadership on LLA, adaptation will not be embedded in national processes and solutions to address the climate crisis.

Priority actions

  1. We will build the economic case for LLA including a quantification of future impacts on local economic development and an analysis of the economic cost of inaction.
  2. We will develop an approach for institutional capacity building to enable greater integration and coordination of LLA at different levels.
  3. We will standardise processes for accessing finance and reporting – national actors can put pressure on vertical funds, bilateral partners and MDBs.
  4. We will develop a supportive narrative to increase investments for building long term and sustainable institutional capacity.
  5. We will socialise LLA within communities to increase their role and effectiveness in LLA.

Other actions

  • Institutionalise LLA at government level, adopt LLA principles, and allocate resources accordingly.
  • Find champions for LLA at sub-national and national levels.
  • Invest in and leverage existing local systems.
  • Invest in the capacity of local entities.
  • Build systems for devolution of power and resources for LLA.
  • Support capacity development and bottom-up approaches to encourage communities to grow in agency and power.
  • Ensure systems for transparency and accountability including at community level and identify whether LLA is effective according to the community.

From local to national government, strong leadership in LLA plays a critical role to ensure that LLA is financed and implemented effectively, supported by strong transparency and accountability processes. Participants understood and agreed the need to support governments to undertake systemic change for LLA, without embedding dependency.  This meant institutionalising LLA, allocating resources, and championing bottom-up approaches.

Join the action: All readers and stakeholders are invited to join in developing capacity-building plans, harmonising finance processes, and embedding transparency.

During steps 3 and 5, participants stated which further specific actions they and their stakeholder group could support (see Annex).

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